Rubble is all that remains of a home in Union Beach, N.J. in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. / Mary Franksbury Park (N.J.) Press

by Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

by Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

What would normally be of interest only to weather geeks - the fact that Superstorm Sandy probably made landfall last month as a "post-tropical cyclone" rather than as a hurricane - is feeding a controversy over why government agencies issued no hurricane warnings.

The hullabaloo involves the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology and the highest levels of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA is the agency that oversees the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service.

Since Sandy wasn't forecast to hit land as a hurricane, the hurricane center did not issue its usual hurricane watches and warnings as the storm approached the coast, instead relying on several local weather service offices to issue "high wind warnings," "coastal flood warnings" and other watches and warnings.

The hurricane center issues warnings for hurricanes and tropical storms, while local offices issue warnings for most other weather phenomena.

This led to some communication confusion as the storm approached, according to Weather Channel hurricane expert Bryan Norcross, who says it may have contributed to some officials downplaying the expected damage.

"Although we're expecting a large surge of water, it is not expected to be a tropical storm or hurricane-type surge," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference two days before the storm hit. "With this storm, we'll likely see a slow pileup of water rather than a sudden surge which is what you'd expect from a hurricane, which is what we saw with Hurricane Irene 14 months ago. So it will be less dangerous."

The storm surge from Sandy roared onto the coasts of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut on the evening of Oct. 29, killing dozens of people, inundating thousands of homes and causing billions of dollars in damages. In August 2011, Irene, though certainly a deadly and destructive storm, did nowhere near the damage that Sandy did.

The center of Sandy hit near Atlantic City as what the hurricane center called a post-tropical cyclone, since it appeared to be in the process of transitioning away from a hurricane. This transition is something that had been forecast for several days and often happens to tropical systems as they move north over cooler ocean waters.

This is a distinction of interest mainly to meteorologists, according to Mike Smith of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions. "Hurricane warnings should have been issued for Sandy," he says. "They (the hurricane center) got locked in on the technical aspects of the meteorology and lost sight of the big picture."

Hurricane warnings "get people's attention in a way that no local alert can," Norcross says. "They stand out." In a bad year, the USA might see only two hurricane watches or warnings, he says.

In the hurricane center's defense, director Rick Knabb told the Weather Channel in an interview, "It would have been pretty bad to put up a hurricane warning, everybody starts evacuating, and then in the middle of the event, the warnings come down. So that was one reason why we elected not to put them up in the first place, because the only thing worse would have been to put them up and then take them down."

Adding to the confusion, Smith says he still is uncertain, based on the meteorological evidence, whether Sandy made landfall as a hurricane or as a post-tropical system.

Smith is concerned that a Sandy "service assessment panel" - of which he was to be the co-chair - was "terminated" two weeks ago. The National Weather Service does a service assessment after every major, deadly event to determine what it did right and what needs to be fixed, Norcross says.

This panel would have been unusual, in that a private expert, Smith, was to be the co-chair, rare for a federal panel.

Congress wants answers as to why NOAA terminated the service assessment panel. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight for the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, contacted NOAA head Jane Lubchenco last week about why the Sandy assessment team was stopped.

"I am concerned by the termination of the service assessment team, especially with the uncertainty of what may or may not occur next," Broun wrote Lubchenco. He also asked whether, if another team forms, it will have the same level of independence as the prior team.

Late Thursday afternoon, weather service spokeswoman Susan Buchanan sent USA TODAY a statement that a different panel would be formed:

"NOAA will proceed with an assessment of National Weather Service products and services during Sandy as it often does after damaging or deadly weather events," the statement says. "The new assessment team will soon form and focus on reviewing the policies underlying weather watches and warnings, and storm surge-related products. ... The proposed assessment team includes representatives from across NOAA and other government agencies, including FEMA."

Buchanan said the creation of the first panel was never set in stone and it was never fully signed and approved by NOAA.

This new panel will consist only of federal employees, not any independent outsiders, Buchanan says.